Only 6.2 miles to go

7am is a nasty time to get up on a Sunday but it was all important for preparing my breakfast and giving myself enough time to eat it before heading out on a 2h55m run. The Bircher Muesli preparation takes a good 20 minutes but it's all worth it. Plenty of oats, bran and fruit to keep you going for the morning.

The run felt good until I was about 22km in, at which point my legs were starting to feel heavy and tired. I took on board the second sports gel of the run and 5 minutes later, whether coincidence or not, I broke through a barrier and picked up the pace to take me through the last 5 miles.

I completed roughly 32km (20 miles) in total, leaving a mere 10km to finish off the marathon distance. I'm walking around without much trouble now and feel pretty confident that I could have jogged a final 10km, especially with the support of a crowd and a pack of other runners around me.

It's an amazing feeling to have built up from running zero miles per week, aside from the odd occasion, to completing the best part of 40 miles in a single week. Today's run is the longest I'll do before heading out to New York and the last time I'll have the support unit in tow. I'm not sure I could have done it without my wife's (aka support unit) support on these long runs, both for encouragement, company and as an en route technical energy refuel and rehydration facility.

I've still 4 weeks of hard training to go and my next long run will be when I take part in the 16 mile Kingston race in two weeks' time.

20 mile barrier on the horizon

My task for the week returning from our holiday was to run 3 times before the weekend amassing 17 miles in the process. I'm pleased to say I fell only 0.7 miles shy of that goal and cycled a further 100 miles commuting to and from work.

Tuesday and Wednesday I got my trainers out at work and went for a 4.5 mile jog both lunchtimes. What with the evenings drawing in and temperatures dropping, a lunchtime run is made even more appealing.

As it had been a while since I'd last run this route, I decided to see if my fitness had improved. I stuck my heart monitor on and kept my bpm between 140 and 150 (75%-80% of max), as I had several weeks previously. This time round, I was consistently clocking in under 5min/km, whereas previously I'd been 5m10s or slower. I'm taking that as a minor improvement.

Friday night, I avoided heading down to the pub, cycled home and ran nearly 11k. Feeling fine today, I'll knock out a little 4k this afternoon in preparation for tomorrow when I take on the longest run I have to do in my training schedule, namely 20 miles, or 32k.

Tackling the Tuscan Hills

Just because I've been without an internet for a week, I don't want you to think that I've been shirking my training as well. Of course I made sure I didn't miss out on the usual holiday delights of sleeping in, sitting by the pool and keeping the palette in check with the local vineyard produce, I also managed to fit in a couple of training runs.

We arrived late and tired on Friday night a few lengths of the pool was all I managed to muster on the Saturday, not wanting to tire myself out before the big one on Sunday.

Sunday, got up at 8, took on a litre of water, a bowl of cereal and half a banana. As I was to be running without the support unit, I filled my camelbak with 1.5 litres of water and stuffed two halves of bananas in the side pockets. When I'd been used to running with support in tow, staring out over my route into the hills of Tuscany with an extra 2 kilos on my back, worried me a little. The prospect improved as I'd luckily picked up a running partner for the first 10k, or so, of the route.

We set off up the hill from the Villa at 8:45, ran 2k into the village of Chianni and started to descend into the valley. By the time we'd reached the valley floor, we'd run 5k. Not being used to running such steep hills, the thighs were working over time on the descent but I'd not felt any twinges to say that I was doing any damage.

About 8k in, I said goodbye to my running partner as I left him to tackle the 3-4k left to take him back up to the villa. Yes, the downside (or upside...) to running down into a valley for 4k, is that you have to get back to where you started.

I carried on for another 1.75 hours, silently jogging my way past men with shotguns out hunting presumably and numerous angry dogs, fortunately stuck behind fencing. Despite this, the route was spectacular. I was in the middle of the Tuscan hills, miles from any sizable town and motoring under my own power. Quite a way to kick off the Sunday morning.

About 24k and 2.25 hours into my run, I realised that I wasn't going to make it back to the villa as it was least 6k away and mostly uphill. I'd only been sipping on the water, but I'd run out and the late morning sun was starting to take its toll. Many of the roads I'd been running on didn't appear on the maps I had to hand, so I'd had to make a lot of it up and estimated the distances from one place to another. I decided to run to the bottom of the home stretch, where I'd left my friend nearly two hours earlier and call it a day. And why not. I'd completed 26k and run for 2hrs 34mins in increasing heat and hilly conditions, with a backpack on. My best effort yet and probably the toughest run I'll do before the marathon. Thankfully, I'd packed my mobile in my backpack and called for the support unit to come and take me home!

During the rest of the week I managed to fit in a 4k interval session and another 13k loop, taking in that killer uphill home stretch I'd not managed on the Sunday. I didn't crack my 5 sessions but made up in part by getting a few lengths in the pool in everyday.

Back to standard training this week...starting tomorrow.

6:30 start

So 6:30 might sound like a lie in to a proper real life athlete, but it felt pretty early to me. And yes, I got up and did my 5 mile run as I'd planned. Stunning morning to do it on too, fresh enough that you know it but not so cold you want to do nothing but turn round and get back inside.

Off to Italy tomorrow. There's no such thing as too much pasta.

Making the heart pump

Spent another evening interval training on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I'd left it too late to head out onto the local park, it was pitch black and I didn't fancy the odds on potholes vs. my ankles. So I ran my original 5k around the streets, 2m30s minutes quick, followed by 2 minutes slow, over and over until I made it home. It resulted in me finishing the 5k in just over 25 minutes. Given how slow I ran the recovery sections, I'm pretty pleased with that.

As for tonight, I'm resting up my left shin again. I'm not totally comfortable with it at the moment and want to give it my best shot at 18 miles on Sunday. Instead, I cycled home 15% quicker than I would normally, to give myself a bit of a work out.

Planning on going for a jog round the park tomorrow morning before work...

Stourport 10 Miler

Went for another run along the Stourport Canal today, from Kidderminster to Stourport and back. The river wasn't about to burst its banks this time and there was no wading through flood water along the towpath. Finished in a relaxed 1hr 32mins, trying not to aggravate my shins. Was I successful? Well, I can still feel some pain in the shin, but it doesn't really bother me when I'm running, so I guess I'm not making it any worse and I can live with that.

Mid-week Update

I've gone a little quiet on the blog, but the training's still pretty much in shape. I missed one run this week but, on the flip-side, I've swapped in a few pints instead. No, it's not that bad, just that trying to juggle the social commitments with the training regime can be tough.

I knocked off 4k of interval training yesterday morning before breakfast, which left me shattered. I hadn't realised what a difference there is between long distance stamina and really giving your heart a work out. I jogged down to the local park (the 0.5 mile in circumference one) and ran 3/4 lap hard and then 1/4 lap at a very slow jog and repeated this 5 times. For the hard sessions, I was pushing my heart rate up around 175-185bpm, or 90-95% of max. 9 weeks of training suddenly felt like it had had no effect, or rather I'd hate to think what I would have been like had I tried that 9 weeks ago.

Tonight, I ran 11k around the Hampton Court-Kingston circuit without the support unit but with a backpack instead, carrying my water. It was dark and I found myself in several tricky games of chicken with runners coming in the opposite direction. I also suffered a few heart jumping moments as shadows popped out of the bushes in front of me, until I caught the silhouette of one of the bunny rabbits in the light of a distant street lamp.

Three Commons Run (14.5 miles)

Got up first thing this morning to prepare for the 16 mile run I was about to undertake. Traditional run day breakfast ingredients of Bircher Muesli and Banana Smoothie with a couple of slices of toast and a coffee thrown in for good measure. 45 minutes after this lot had gone down, we (runner + support unit) set off in the opposite direction, from normal, to take in three commons.

Within 15 minutes, we found ourselves running through woodland. That pretty much set the tone for the whole run. It was fantastic. Hardly a saw a soul, the ground was soft and the tree cover made for a refreshing temperature.

It wasn't without incident though. As the more astute readers will have noticed, I only completed 14.5 out of the intended 16 miles. This was because we got blocked from going any further through the forest due to it being protected land. A large section of forest around Oxshott, home to some of the world's richest footballers, has been designated as for permit holders only. Real shame, because it looked stunning beyond the gate but I guess you wouldn't want to feel the that local residents were restricted to their 10 bedroom mansions, tennis courts and swimming pools, so best give them the forest too.

Injury wise. I think the week off, followed by gentle training on grass, was the best move I could have made as my shin pains have almost disappeared completely. Fingers crossed I won't wake up with a new injury tomorrow.